


Naught But Winter (Until)

by madeoftime



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blank Verse, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Fantasy, Free Verse, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Character of Color, POV Female Character, POV Lesbian Character, Poetic, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 22:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8507254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madeoftime/pseuds/madeoftime
Summary: Two young women meet on a mountain.Set in an ambiguous fantasy realm.





	

When we met it was snowing.

It snowed a lot back then.

I’d yet to see but winter.

I saw her and I thought she must be a princess (maybe I’m not the brightest).

She had a sword in her hand, ready.

Her eyes were like flames when she turned towards me, melting the ice at our feet with her orange glare. (Is that stupid?)

I ran away.

 

Again we met, before the snow stopped.

Her sword was sheathed.

Her eyes had become green (later I learned, like trees).

(But not before winter ended).

She told me she was a friend.

I trusted her.

We sat on an icy rock and she shared her jerky with me.

She told me her quest.

I wished her luck.

She showed me how to write her name in the snow.

Then she left.

 

Thrice we met in the winter, and the final time her eyes were as grey as the rivers.

I wrote her name in the snow as we talked.

I asked how her eyes changed every time she visited.

Her mother was a bird, she told me.

(I didn’t tell her about the pet finch I overfed.)

She told me she could fly, but not in the cold.

I laughed. 

It was always cold.

Cold was all I’d known.

She told me the mountains were cursed.

That cold was dangerous.

She asked me to leave with her.

I said no.

 

I wrote her name a thousand thousand times.

She wasn’t coming back.

I cried.

My mother passed.

I didn’t cry.

The neighbors left condolences in food, and a heavy quilt (I needed a new one, and my mother could hardly sew me one).

I swathed the fish and jerky in my old quilt.

And myself in the new.

And I ran.

I ran from the cursed home, my mother’s grave, the grieving people of my land.

I didn’t love them.

 

The ice clung to my quilt, my hands.

My saved meat spilled into the river.

I was dying.

Then the ice melted and there was grass.

Green, green grass, and then a cloud of colors I’d never seen.

I cried again.

I didn’t want to crush the colors, so I slept there in the grass.

 

She found me, and her eyes were soft and golden. 

Sad.

She was crying.

She had a horse with her.

She spent months working, slaving to buy a horse so she could take me away from the cursed mountain.

Why for me?

She told me the colors were called flowers.

Such a perfect name.

She said her name was a type of flower, too.

I didn’t understand what that meant back then (but now I do. At least I’m learning).

She took me to her home.

She lit a fire and as we cooked she told me a secret.

Then she kissed me.

(I think you can guess the secret.)

 

The townsfolk were curious about my skin.

If they asked I would tell them I came from a different land.

But they didn’t ask.

Just like they didn’t ask about her eyes.

People are silly like that.

They never say what they want.

It makes hiding things easy.

So I lived happily ever after.

The daughter of a goddess in my heart.

And the mountain kingdom’s princess was never seen again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
